Happy Tails for Odie

September 16, 2011

Dear LRR Friends,

Its six months since we adopted Odie so I thought that I would give you an update. Odie is a wonderful dog! He fits right into our house and has become great friends with Bailey (our other dog) and also our three cats. Odie loves his toys and he will always rush to the door to meet us with a stuffed animal in his mouth. He loves to play tug-of-war with us and also with Bailey.

Odie loves to go for walks and we go at least three times a day for about five miles total. I think that LRR told us that Odie will sometimes get a little anxious at night when he is ready for a walk and we have seen that on a few occasions. He will almost jump in my lap to let me know that it’s time to go for our late night walk. It’s really funny because as soon as we come home from our walks Odie is so tired that he will head right for the chair or sofa where he loves to curl up and sleep.

Odie loves to follow us around the house. You can always count on Odie being outside the door if you go into a room.

Odie and Bailey both sleep on the bed and they have their own reserved area. Bailey likes to sleep against the pillows while Odie will always sleep on the foot of the bed with his head hanging precariously off the end of the bed. Odie sleeps like a rock until he slowly slips off the bed and falls on the floor where he usually continues to sleep.

LRR also told us that Odie liked to carry around his dog bowl. He does that here too. When he is hungry he often carries Bailey’s food bowl and marches around the house with it. We are careful not to give him too much food though.

In addition to enjoying his walks Odie loves to go for car rides. He reminds us so much of Keebler in the way that he loves the car and how he is so quiet and just curls up in the back seat and sleeps. As a matter of fact, Odie sleeps in the back seat just like he does on the sofa with his head hanging off the seat. There has been a few times that Odie even slowly slid off the back seat of the car and fallen on the floor.

As far as the cats are concerned, Odie stopped chasing them about a month after we got him. We did lose one of our cats, Miss Kitty, to bone cancer a month after we got Odie. In June we adopted another cat, George, and George and Odie are great friends. George loves to lay by Odie and they even sleep together (as you can see in the pictures).

Odie has gotten into some mischief though. It only took us a week or so to discover that Odie liked to go through the garbage when we weren’t in the house. We now take the garbage bag and put it in the garage whenever we leave the house. Odie also likes to sneak and eat the cat’s food. We have caught him standing on the kitchen table a few times and he will even go in the container that has the cat’s food in it. Needless to say, we now hide the cats’ food too. Odie and his buddy George also like to counter surf. I left a half bag of frozen chicken breasts thawing on the kitchen counter one afternoon and just ran up to the store for a few minutes. When I came back home I discovered a broken bowl on the kitchen floor and no trace of the frozen chicken was to be found. I’m sure that Bailey helped Odie eat it though. George the cat has stolen pork chops off the kitchen counter so he makes a good partner in crime with Odie.

I know that you required Odie to have a six foot fence but I have never observed him trying to escape or jump. As a matter of fact he sometimes barely makes it up on the bed or the back seat of our SUV. I still keep a close watch on him though because he does still pull hard on his leash which is something that we have to work on.

We really love Odie and all our family (people and animals alike) love him too!!! Thank you all for the wonderful things that you do with the labbies and allowing Odie to be part of our lives!

April 30, 2011

Here is a picture of Odie in his new chair. He’s been in it for almost two hours now and the only movement he’s made is to slide further out of it

Please extend our thanks to all the foster families! Everyone was so wonderful to us! We really appreciate everyone’s hospitality and kindness.

About Happy Tails

LRR takes special pride in the many happy endings we've had the privilege
to facilitate. We enjoy following up with our adoptive homes to make sure
all is going smoothly. It is especially gratifying to hear these great
stories, particularly when some of these labs were rescued from awful
situations and environments.

Some of our most neglected labs have gone on
to key roles within families, including helping unresponsive autistic
children to speak first sentences; providing emotional support to
children who are sick from chemotherapy; and teaching other children that
being adopted is a wonderful thing. We hope you will enjoy a sampling of
our "Happy Tails."

Special Stories

Please take a few minutes to read these extraordinary stories about a
few special LRR dogs: